Guest Post Retargeting 101: Amplify Your ROI

McKay Allen01/23/2014

This is a guest post from Kathleen Limon, a Product Manager at Retargeter. You can follow Retargeter on Twitter @retargeter.

Imagine that you, as a marketer, could gain a deep understanding of prospects’ interests and behaviors. And imagine that you could remind those prospects, in a highly customized way, about the benefits of your product or service. And then imagine those prospects turning into customers, maximizing your marketing spend and increasing your ROI. It’s a pretty compelling dream, isn’t it? Welcome to the world of retargeting.

What is Retargeting?

People visit your website all the time, but sometimes they leave without completing a desired action (like signing up for a mailing list or completing a purchase). Retargeting allows you to display your advertisements to those visitors, recapturing their interest and inviting them back to your site.

Types of Retargeting

Retargeting takes several forms, each one dependent on a different user engagement.

Site retargeting – Serve ads to people who visit your website after they leave.

Email retargeting – Serve ads to people who open your emails.

CRM retargeting – Serve ads to people with nothing but an email or mailing list.

How Does it Work?

Site-based retargeting is the most frequently used retargeting method. It uses cookies to present your ads to previous site visitors. When someone visits your website, your retargeting provider drops an anonymous browser cookie that stores information. The cookie lets your provider know when the bounced visitor appears on another site. If there is available ad space, your retargeting provider will bid on that space in real-time. If they are the highest bidder, they secure the ad space for your ads. By the time the page loads, your ad will be present alongside the content!

Why Marketers Should Be Retargeting

Retargeting allows you to serve ads to people who have already shown interest in your brand, making retargeting a smarter spend than most other display ad campaigns. It’s also one of the most effective ways of driving back bounced traffic.

Retargeting is applicable across industries and in numerous ways. With retargeting, ecommerce companies can combat shopping cart abandonment, B2B companies can stay in front of leads during longer purchase cycles, schools can retarget to increase enrollment and donations, recruiters can target only qualified applicants and events, and entertainment brands can increase ticket or merchandise sales. Retargeting is a smart choice for organizations in any industry.

Getting Started

When starting a retargeting campaign, there are a few things to understand regarding bidding, pricing models, and whether you want a self-service solution or a fully managed service.

Bidding

When a retargeted user visits a site with available ad space, your provider will place a bid for you in real time. If your bid is the highest, then your ad will be displayed. This model is referred to as Real Time Bidding or RTB for short. For a more in-depth explanation of RTB, check out this post.

Pricing Models

There are three different pricing models, cost-per-thousand (CPM), cost-per-click (CPC), and cost-per-action (CPA).

Cost-per-thousand (CPM): Cost-per-thousand is the most common way to pay for advertising. You’re paying to display your ads by the thousand. For example, a rate of $2.85 per thousand impressions for site retargeting would cost $285 to display 100,000 impressions.

Cost-per-click (CPC): When you pay by CPC, you only pay for impressions that lead to a click. So at a rate of $2 CPC with a $1000 budget, you’re guaranteed 500 clicks throughout the lifetime of your campaign.

Cost-per-action (CPA): CPA takes things one step further than CPC. With CPA pricing, you only pay for impressions that lead to a specific action being taken by the viewer, like signing up for a mailing list or making a purchase.

Self-Service vs. Full-Service

Depending on your needs, you can opt for a self-service solution or a fully managed service.

Self-service: With a self-service campaign you have complete access to your campaign and are free to make updates at your own discretion. Although this option allows you to avoid built-in account management fees, it also requires a greater investment of time and resources.

Full-service: A fully managed campaign involves an account manager who is responsible for monitoring, updating, and optimizing the campaign for you. This option is a larger financial investment, but a smaller resource investment.

Retargeting can be a powerful tool in the marketer’s arsenal. Retargeting gives you the ability to target your prospects very precisely and in alignment with their needs and interests. It allows you to show your ads to prospects as they browse, increasing your chances of a conversion. And most importantly, retargeting amplifies your ROI, feeds the ever-hungry sales pipeline, and positively contributes to your business’ bottom line. Interested in more information about how retargeting can work for you? Ping ReTargeter at sales@retargeter.com.